


Between Acts

by Spylace



Series: Intermission [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Bad Decisions, Bad Sex, Character Death Fix, Don't worry, F/M, Gen, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, References To Terrorism, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoiler, Temporary Character Death, They get better, Weird Biology, sequels as a result of said bad decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:39:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fist to the face and John Harrison finds himself besotted with the visiting doctor to the Royal Children's Hospital. He then proceeds to forcibly woo McCoy much to the said doctor's dismay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as 'Intermission' on STID kink for the prompt: http://strek-id-kink.livejournal.com/1695.html?thread=245151#t245151 wherein I mostly ignored it and focused on _A/B/O dynamics with Khan/McCoy!_
> 
> Also, this: http://strek-id-kink.livejournal.com/1695.html?thread=572575#t572575 (Khan is injured and meets Bones before the events of the film) because sexual imperatives totally count.
> 
> It is complete, I'm just taking too long to clean it up and post. 
> 
> Enjoy :3

“Oh thank god.” Geoffrey M’Benga said out loud when McCoy took the call out of sheer reflex. He wasn’t sure why he’d answered; he was still reeling from their adventure on Nibiru, jetlag compounded by the fact that he’d been stuck with inventory and writing up reports while Jim had flounced off to the nearest bar to celebrate.

Alphas, he scoffed.

He was vulnerable, highly suggestible and Geoff knew it—he wanted a redo.

McCoy groaned when he heard the dreaded words, emergency, parents and medical consultation. Not that treating civilians was beneath him as a Starfleet officer but he would have appreciated it if the other man had waited until it wasn’t ass o’ clock in the morning to hit the distress button.

Deep inside his brain, the part that wasn’t trying to meld with the mattress like an alpha in rut, he knew he wasn’t being fair. Geoff wouldn’t have called him unless it was an emergency. He fumbled with the lights, all plans of a quiet night evaporating like the distant fantasy of being posted dirtside.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He asked plaintive even as he began to pack for an overnight trip to London.

“It’s a favor for a friend.” Geoff apologized, forwarding him the itinerary of the earliest flight out of San Francisco.

“You don’t have any.” He muttered, wondering if he should give up and splash some retinax in his eyes. “You haven’t had a personal life since the ‘Fleet kidnapped you right out of medschool.”

“I have you.” Geoff countered serenely.

McCoy pointed a finger at the screen. “You let me drink a bottle of Romulan ale by myself. Friends don’t let friends do that to themselves.”

“You were fine.”

“I joined Starfleet!” McCoy snapped, outraged.

“You saved Earth, if anyone should be getting a medal, it should be me.”

Growling, he tamed his hair to a level of respectability that would have had his mother, bless her heart, dragging him off to the nearest barber. “Geoff, I don’t know what you told them there’s no cure for Rushton infection.”

“They’re not looking for a miracle Len.” The other man sighed, sagging behind the screen. He looked wan, as though he’d gone through an entire heat alone in a room with only his right hand for company. “They just want to spend time with their little girl. Now I told them that if anyone could find an effective treatment...”

McCoy could feel the guilt creeping in. “Dammit man, I’m a doctor not a miracle worker. Why’d you have to go and do that for?”

Geoff rolled his eyes. “Because it’s the truth? You’re the one who wrote a dissertation on the three different strains of Rushton infection.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” McCoy sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

“Good man. And thanks Len.”

“You owe me.” He replied, ending the call.

Jim stumbled in right then. The blond took in his state of dress with wide eyes, lips swollen and neck drenched with cheap perfume.

“Bones!” He exclaimed when he saw the contents of his closet exploding all over the living space. “Where are you going?”

“London.”

“London?” Jim frowned, following him to the door. “Why London?”

McCoy turned around and jabbed the alpha on the side of the side of the neck.

“Ow fuck! Why do you always go for the neck?!”

“Infant” He said fondly, handing him the empty hypo. Jim glared suspiciously but took it, squinting at the tiny letters. “I’ll be out for a few days. Don’t burn the place down and do not have sex in my bed.”

“But I can have sex in your apartment?” Jim leered hopefully.

McCoy snorted.

“Try not to get into any trouble.”

Jim called after him “That’s not a no!”


	2. Chapter 2

“Let him go.” Marcus said in disgust as he shrank back with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs. There was something wrong with him, he could feel it. He needed assistance. “Let him terrorize somebody else for a change.”

A cruel twist of lips.

“Besides, we have his crew.”

 

In his fevered delusions, he ran down the streets of London, turning into corners and slipping into the marketplaces, so sure that Marcus had eyes on him everywhere.

It began to rain, a cloud burst, swift and temptuous like the London he remembered before technology, climate control.

He stole a coat.

In his pockets, he found a wallet and ID belonging to a William Carey of Devonshire. He tossed it in a garbage chute knowing that it was useless to him. Everything was marked, traceable in the twenty-third century. He would return to Section 31 but only on his terms, when he was ready, with a plan to break his crew out.

Someone placed a hand on his shoulder. “You alright mate?”

He flung the man forward, laying him on his back. His attacker was thin, ginger with blue highlights frosting the tips. Young and frightened, he smelled ripe for the taking, an omega in the first stages of heat. He peeled his lips back, intent on devouring him when he saw a familiar man get into a cab.

Immediately, he let go of his quarry, staggering to his feet for a breath of air devoid of his taint. The omega scrabbled away on his hands and knees, bolting when he’d placed a few meters in between.

Any other time, the terrified reaction might have amused him. But he recognized Thomas Harewood of Section 31. He was one who’d made some delightful suggestions to the dreadnaught design, truly a worthy metalmonger.

Harewood also had a daughter, eleven, and deathly ill. Inexplicably displaced under the gloomy, overcast skies, he grasped at the only familiar thing he recognized and tailed him back to Royal Children’s Hospital.

A plan was beginning to form in his mind. He had no illusions of who he was, of what he was. If it was a cure the man desperately sought, his blood would be enough to buy the man’s loyalty. And it was this distinction, the ability to think at all under disadvantageous circumstances that helped his kind seize control of Earth more than three hundred years ago.

But when he attempted to approach the grieving beta, he was thwarted by two men who accompanied him. His cock twitched in interest when he caught their scent, eyes roving over the smaller of the pair and his chocolate skin, his black curls before realizing what he was doing and hid behind a pillar, a ruler of the worlds reduced to the shadows like a common slave.

He observed the exchange, the way the beta’s shoulders shook with ill-disguised sobs.

Weak—he thought.

So caught up in Harewood’s movements that he did not realize that he had been detected.

“Can I help you with something?”

An alpha stood in front of him with a stormy expression.

No, not an alpha though at first glance it was an easy mistake to make. Tall, broad, built like the many security guards tastefully decorating the third story wing. But while those exuded heightened aggression and testosterone, the man smelled benign like leaves of grass of perfumed handkerchief washed of its scent.

He smelled like a neuter.

The transformation of the beta’s face was instantaneous.

“Oh lord, you’re in rut.”

So that’s what he’d been forgetting.

The man grabbed him by the arm and spun him around, thumb pressed against a particularly nasty nerve cluster as he was frog-marched down the halls. “This is the children’s ward you sick fuck!” The beta barked. Everyone else scrambled to take cover. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Marcus had his crew. That was the only reason the beta was still alive.

He could easily rip his insolent tongue out but that would cause a scene. Discovery was detrimental to his objective. He had no doubt that one more toe out of the line would be the end of them all, seventy-two lives tucked inside torpedoes of his own making.

“You do not understand.” He tried to explain through gritted teeth. “I merely wished to...”

“Oh I understand alright you demented...”

“How can I convince you I mean no harm?”

“You could stop acting like a serial rapist.” The beta spat, not at all mild or meek or generally uninteresting. He punched a button and the elevator began to descent. “They have a place for people like you.”

He felt oddly maligned.

“Come on, I’ll take you to andrology department. Might as well be firing on all cylinders when the security tosses on your ass.”

A beta dared to threaten him?

He could have laughed.

But he was in rut and no alpha, omega or beta was going to threaten him.

He reacted badly, pinning the other man against the sliding doors, wrenching his arm backwards. The beta let out a sudden cry and he squeezed harder just to hear the sound.

“No!” he snarled. “No doctors! No hospitals!”

“No hospitals?” The beta wheezed, his face bleached white from the pain. “Dammit man, you’re already in a hospital.” His fingers inched towards the emergency call button but he ruthlessly crushed them beneath his elbow. Pity, they were quite lovely. The beta let out a stifled choke. “No hospitals” He said, “Got it.”

The elevator chimed and they stumbled out onto the first floor.

The beta quickly tucked his injured hand in his armpit, backing away with a mutinous look. He cocked his head in renewed interest.

“You’re a beta.” He said simply, a statement, an observation, not meant to cause the level of offence that was clear as day across the other man’s face.

“What about it?” The beta snapped, eyes darting every which way for an escape route.

He laughed throatily, heat effusing through his belly.

“You will do.” He clamped his hands around his face, sticking his tongue down the beta’s throat. The other man stood, momentarily stunned as he groped and tore his way through the layers of clothing.

An omega would have eagerly accepted his advances, putting off its own budding pheromones of receptivity. But he could not get a read on the beta, his scent was too faint. The man smelled of... well he wasn’t sure what he smelled of but it pleased him. He wanted more of it.

That was when the beta punched him in the face.

 

 

McCoy socked the stranger in the jaw, mouth falling open in a wordless cry as pain radiated from the peaks of his knuckles to the rest of his hand like he’d punched something cast-iron.

The alpha seemed visibly upset at his rejection, bringing his fingers up to his jaw, not quite touching, but just there, a centimeter away from his skin. He looked pathetic and god help him, a little like Jim when he learned that he’d been grounded after cheating on the Kobayashi Maru.

McCoy was pretty certain that he was the wronged party. His hand hurt like a motherfucker as he shook it out, taking deep breaths as though he was dealing with a new intern, a viral STI or starship captains, not necessarily in that order.

“You do not desire intercourse?” His aggressor asked, tone oddly bitter.

McCoy felt the familiar tendrils of guilt creep up on him, wrapping around his neck like the time he’d forgotten his anniversary present for Pam or when he accidentally locked his roommate out during exams.

“Is this a joke?”

The other man tilted his head before leaning over to sniff.

He fucking sniffed him.

McCoy fought the urge to punch him again in the interests of his career as a surgeon.

The man frowned.

“I do not understand.” He informed him.

“Me neither.” McCoy said honestly. And he’d thought Spock was socially inept. At least the Vulcan first officer did not go around kissing people, groping them, sniffing them or slamming them against walls.

Except he knew only half the things he’d listed weren’t true and he wasn’t sure about the groping bit either.

There really was only one way to deal with wayward alphas in rut. Rolling his eyes, he stuck a hypo against the side of the man’s neck. The man flailed, looking betrayed an affronted all at once. What did he expect? It was broad daylight, in a children’s hospital no less!

“It’s okay.” He said grimly. “I’m a doctor, I know what I’m doing.”

McCoy glared at the security guard who was only now ambling towards them.

“What the hell took you so long?”

 

Unfortunately, either the stranger was some kind of a superhuman or he was losing his touch. He was sure he had set the dose to give him at least an hour to dispose of the body (in the very best way of course, preferably at a motel where the stranger could sleep it off) but the man shook off the effects of the sedative by the time he’d hailed a taxi.

For some reason, Geoff had decided to lodge him halfway across the city. He wasn’t entirely certain it wasn’t because he’d commended his friend to the post on the Enterprise.

(“I have a life here Len! Important research!”

“Sucks doesn’t it when the shoe is on the other foot?”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”)

Cries of favoritism aside, Geoffrey M’Benga was an excellent doctor and specialized in Vulcan physiology. He’d need one of those if Jim’s harebrained scheme to get them lost in the black for five years went through. McCoy shuddered.

“Should I not be the one taking advantage?” The stranger asked in a sleep-roughened voice, ridiculously graceful even when folded in half across the back seat. Their Grazerite cabdriver threw back a look of concern, nostrils flaring at the scent of an alpha in rut.

McCoy raised an eyebrow.

“Aren’t we full of ourselves?”

The stranger started to move only to be stopped by the lingering paralysis in his extremities. In a low, deadly voice, he demanded “What have you done to me?”

The Grazerite let out a small squeak of alarm. McCoy was hurry to reassure him, flashing a credit chip against the divider. Turning to the other man he said frankly, “I gave you a short-acting anxiolytic and lamotrigine for your problem. It should take care of the problem long enough to find a room. Something you should have done before you decided to show your shortcomings to the public.”

The man growled but with irritation rather than testosterone-filled anger.

“I am in need.”

“So am I. For a drink, Jesus Christ.”

McCoy leaned back against the cushioned sheets, popping his neck as the man squirmed, unsure of himself. Inwardly, McCoy snorted. Another day, another alpha who thought him a pushover because he was a beta. Tolerance in the twenty-third century, act I.

“What were you doing at the hospital anyway?”

“I was looking for someone.” The man claimed.

McCoy, whose bullshit meter could detect a lie from a mile away in forms of otherwise unrepentant helmsman, navigator, engineer, Vulcan or captain, simply said “Huh”.

The man turned his attention back to him, leonine eyes glowing like twin lamps.

“You do not believe me.”

“Would you?” McCoy asked, genuinely concerned.

The man growled again, causing their cabdriver to whimper. McCoy pushed him gently in the shoulder. “Hey, none of that.”

The man appeared baffled at the command though he did subside, snatching distracted looks at him when he thought he wasn’t looking.

“McCoy” He offered, tired of staring at the never-ending line of clouds.

“Pardon?”

He waved a hand. “My name’s Leonard McCoy.” He repeated slowly with the effect of speaking to someone with irreversible intracranial damage. “Now you’re supposed to say... hello, my name is...?”

The man’s lips curved into a smile.

McCoy wasn’t a beta to succumb to preteen seduction but damn if the man didn’t look good and smell good and even taste...

He cleared his throat.

“Hello Leonard, I am John.”

 

 

He gave beta a name, a half a name, a false name, a lie, and felt bitter for it. Bitter for lying to a lesser being—Earth was more treacherous than he remembered.

McCoy dropped him off downtown in between waxing criticisms of everything and anything. Idiomatic hyperboles peppered his each breath. The beta was particularly salient on the part of certain people (him) getting out at certain time of the year and becoming a general nuisance to ordinary folks.

Inexplicably, he found himself smitten.

It wasn’t the beta’s appearance he was attracted to though, upon a closer look, the beta was pleasing to the sight as he was to the olfactory, back straight despite his slouch, wide shoulders, lean musculature, healthy and in good color, elegant hands folded across each knee. He had proven without a doubt that he was compassionate and even competent despite the disadvantages of his betaness.

Had McCoy been born an omega, he would have taken him in the cab with the Grazerite in attendance. McCoy looked like he could produce good children, his body a fertile field for any man’s seed.

Briefly he frowned, a twinge of jealousy and unrest at the thought of the beta, his beta, laboring beneath another.

He sniffed lightly, head pressed against the glass, savoring the beta’s smell in small increments like a glass of aged wine. The other man didn’t notice, distracted by the Grazerite’s contribution to his rant about veganism. He smelled like a brush of honey painted across a petal, a pinch of sea salt sprinkled across leather and something uniquely him, complex and beautiful, something that reminded him of home.

“How much do I owe you?” He asked gravely when they stopped, throat suddenly taut with longing at the dissipated pheromones.

The Grazerite jerked his head up sharply at the sound of his voice, horizontal pupils widening into black disks across each eye. If he remembered correctly, Grazerites were herbivores, pacifists who despised conflict and cowered behind the Federation’s pretentious colors in exchange for their planet’s resources.

They were like sheep in a flock, the Federation and its shining ideals the boy who cried wolf.

The alien seemed relieved as he got out of the cab, purposefully climbing over the beta instead of getting out from his side. McCoy complained loudly, wrinkling his nose at the smear of musk across his chest and thighs. He rolled his eyes.

“You don’t owe me nothin’, just stay away from kids while you’re in rut. It’s fucking creepy.”

He nodded jerkily and didn’t mention that it was awfully prejudiced for a twenty-third century man to say so. After all, he did start it by kissing the beta in the first place.

He had been drugged, his pristine body, which had never needed a single vaccination to ward off diseases, tainted by the tiniest of cuts on the tendons of his neck. But he felt ridiculously grateful to the beta for returning him his control. It felt a little like the first time he’d been let out of the labs to the blue emptiness of a summer sky.

“I thank you.” He said. “For not turning me over to the security as you promised.”

The beta blushed and replied gruffly, “Take care you hear?”

The cab immediately peeled itself away from the curb.

He returned to Sector 31, head clearer and filled with purpose. Admiral Marcus was not yet in; surprised, his handlers informed him that the man was in a non-stop meeting with the Federation Council on the matters of the Klingon incursion.

And so he was free to do whatever he liked. But that kind of liberty was a burden for one who had no desire to further the lesser alpha’s goals. Instead of sitting with his crew of seventy-two enduring souls, he paced restlessly in the shadows, his augmented eyes far better at picking out the frenetic movements on the floors above.

He needed to get out.

He wanted to see McCoy, if only to be punched in the face again.

Lieutenant Liao politely asked if he wanted privacy to himself.

He growled and reached for a PADD.

Leonard Horatio McCoy was 35, a beta, divorced, no children and dead parents; he was credited with a number of revolutionary techniques within medical circles, specifically his breakthroughs in neural grafting and spinal manipulation. He had also published a paper on Rushton Infection, the same disease that had Lucille Harewood, the daughter of Thomas Harewood, in its punishing grip.

It explained why the beta was there, employed at her parents behest despite being a decorated Starfleet officer. His lips curled as the man’s history was bared at the click of a button. Technology was truly a marvel.

Unfortunately, he was still in rut, McCoy’s tailored cocktail having only diverted it from its true course. His handlers, betas, the two of them, because Marcus thought having two alphas in the same room would ensure having only one the next morning, yelled something crude when an officer arrived, striking in her dark grey uniform.

She swiveled her hips enticingly as though asking him to follow. Earlier, he might have taken her up on the offer had he not known the sweet scent and the quiet pleasure the beta’s skin when he’d swung a knee over to climb out.

He put his PADD down, erasing all data.

He grabbed his coat and headed out, dreams of world dominance and his crew pushed aside for the moment.

Outside, he hailed a cab which was being driven by a portly black man with salted hair and beard. “Where to?” The cabdriver asked lazily, wiping the back mirror with his stained sleeves.

He was an augment; he could remember a simple address to a hotel.

The cabbie wiggled his eyebrows knowingly.

“She must be a fit bird then eh?”

Faking indifference, he climbed back out of the cab and started walking.

And as though the entire universe was conspiring against him, it began to rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles*


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing McCoy did when he checked into his hotel room was to call Jim. Because he hadn’t had sleep in forty-eight hours. But mostly because he was a terrible person.   
  
The screen flickered on as Jim dragged himself over, groggy but thankfully devoid of any telltale bruises or scrapes, just suffering from a regular hangover and the exhaustion of being on the tail-end of twenty-something-years-old.   
  
But despite his constant gripes and motherhenning, even McCoy had to admit that Jim had grown up in the past year. He was starting to take responsibility befitting his rank, the incidence of fist-to-face syndrome at an all-time low. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had to fish Jim out of a brawl. Though that might be because everyone recognized the blue-eyed poster boy for Starfleet.   
  
People forgave you for a lot of things if you saved the world.   
  
The blond bleated at him in protest, the side of his face creased in red plaid.  
  
“Bones?” He yawned. “Whazzit? It’s only...” Jim fumbled, reaching for the clock display. His face fell as he read the numbers, looking as though the world had done him a great insult by announcing that it was well past sleeping in and somewhere in the quadrant of a medically induced coma.   
  
“Up and at ‘em Jimmy.” McCoy said cheerily. He felt better already despite his impromptu shuttle ride without his requisite drugs and the morning’s consultation right after when he had finished throwing up into a trash can. Only a timely intervention from M’Benga and a cup of burnt coffee saved him from being pegged as a drunk and thrown out from the hospital grounds.

It was bad. Lucille Harewood was well into stage three of Rushton’s infection and hadn’t regained consciousness in days. Though he had been brought in as a last-ditch effort to prolong the girl’s life, he wondered what good it did when the little girl was so clearly suffering. Euthanasia had been brought up several times, both by himself and several of the doctors but her father refused to hear of it. Harewood had stared at the photos of his daughter throughout his examination, as though his mind refused to equate the vibrant little girl on the beach with her fragile shell.

He shook his head.

“You must have at least one important meeting to get to this fine evening.”

Jim groaned—the big baby. But he was rudely derailed from poking fun at his best friend when he saw the oversized hickey on the side of his neck. He hadn’t seen it when Jim stumbled in the night before (or maybe it was before that), handsy and invasive, no sense of personal space and an entitlement issue where he was concerned.   
  
“Jim” McCoy asked, quickly scanning the dentition. “Is that my shirt?”

The shirt in question was a faded grey tee from his days in Ole Miss. He could barely see the logo now and it had gotten a little threadbare over the years. It was a little weird seeing Jim wear it, swamped in the soft fabric. It strangely felt right.  
  
“It was the first thing I grabbed.” Jim confessed, picking at the hems.  
  
Odd, since it was in the laundry basket when he had seen it last and Jim wasn’t in the habit of doing other people’s laundry. Dishes, maybe, but Jim was allergic to most commercial detergents and was leery of going near the washing machine in general. Something about childhood trauma.   
  
Personally, he liked the smell of fresh laundry.   
  
“Jim.” He deadpanned. “Tell me you did not have sex in my apartment.”  
  
Jim fidgeted in response. “I didn’t have sex in your apartment?”   
  
He crossed his arms.   
  
“Is that a statement or a question or have you enough brain damage that you honestly can’t remember which is which?”   
  
“Um”   
  
“ _Jim_ ” Typical, type-A alphas ruining his nominally shitty day. “Did you or did you not fuck somebody in my bed?”  
  
Jim winced.   
  
“Bones, I swear, I didn’t do it in your _bed_.”   
  
“And that somehow makes it better?!”   
  
“You never said no!”  
  
“I shouldn’t have to!”  
  
They had an agreement. A strict contract in which Jim did not bring his conquests inside his home, under his roof and god help him, if he had to, he did not want to know about it.   
  
“Jiiim~” Someone thrilled. “Where are you~?”  
  
He scowled at the sight of a Deltan cooing into Jim’s flaming ear. She blinked at him curiously, not a hair out of place like an actress in a holovid getting up in the mornings just as powdered and immaculate as when she went to bed.   
  
“Oh? Who’s this Jim?” She leered, flashing her teeth. “Is he a friend of yours?”   
  
Jim looked about as comfortable as having a cottonmouth draped across his shoulder.   
  
“I see.” McCoy said in a clipped voice.   
  
He felt—he didn’t know how he felt. Not betrayed but resigned. Like teaching a dog not to piss on the carpet and finding a puddle of yellow after.   
  
“Bones”  
  
“The hypos for your hangover are in the bedside drawer. Help yourself.” He added. “Clean up afterwards.”  
  
“ _Bones_ —”  
  
“McCoy out.”  
  
It was a high time he made good on his self-made promise for a drink.

 

The knocks came after he’d fallen in bed with a bottle of whisky. He cursed as he stood back up, wondering if he was going to be interrupted every time he was about to get some quality time with a horizontal surface.  
  
“Dammit Geoff.”  
  
He swung open the door, intent on chewing M’Benga out.   
  
John Harrison stood in his doorway, soaked to his skin. His first instinct was to get the man a hot shower and a towel. The second was to get him in bed.   
  
“I’ve been looking for you.” Harrison said darkly as he pushed his way in. McCoy stood dumbstruck as the man dripped all over the thin carpet, his shoes squelching with every step. Even while looking as though he’d swam his way up Thames River, he smelled unmistakably of an alpha, face devoid of every color except in his eyes.   
  
He’d always had a thing for blue eyes.  
  
“I visited fifteen hotels before I found a Leonard McCoy.”  
  
“...You could have called.”   
  
Harrison didn’t seem to have heard.  
  
“A concierge after concierge and I did not stop. You are maddening.”  
  
“I’m sorry?” He offered, handing him a towel.   
  
John Harrison shot him a smoldering look.   
  
“I wish to lie with you.”  
  
McCoy blinked and said “Christ on a stick, no wonder you’re having problems.”  
  
With an animalistic snarl, Harrison shoved him against the counter, the jutting edge digging into his spine in a spectacular line of bruise that would be felt for days later. McCoy pushed back, on principle if nothing else because his body agreed wholeheartedly even as his brain protested, its stifled warnings fading into the backdrop as his legs fell open to better accommodate an alpha in rut.   
  
He wasn’t a beta to succumb to preteen seduction of shoving one’s hands in another’s pockets but damned if it wasn’t effective. Harrison smelled good. A lifetime of working with men, women, children and alien taught him to differentiate between individuals, no person smelled quite alike, but Harrison was in a class of his own.   
  
He could feel his own heat building, a divorcee’s constitution and a lifelong vow (sadly taken right after staggering out of the courtroom and thus discounted often) never to sleep with a partner in heat or rut, crumbling against the onslaught of sensory overload.  
  
Humans being the opportunistic animals they were, he couldn’t exactly fault his body for soaking up the other man’s attentions. What he couldn’t understand was why Harrison had bothered. There were plenty of fish in the sea, men, women, alien, robots who would roll in the hay with him at the drop of a hat. Why stalk a recalcitrant beta cross London, in rain, when a more enthusiastic partner would have sufficed with considerably less lip service?   
  
“You can’t be serious.” He panted, still lucid enough to verbalize.   
  
“You do not want this?” Harrison asked silkily, squeezing his dick through his boxers.   
  
“No” McCoy growled, frustrated beyond belief at his self-imposed attempt at cockblock. “But you can’t tell me you haven’t had better offers.”   
  
“Martyrdom does not become you.” Harrison dismissed. He froze when the man pressed a tentative kiss against the corner of his lips, as though afraid of being punched or hypoed again. McCoy tilted his head back, allowing an easier access to his mouth and slipping a bit of tongue in. Harrison stifled a moan against his jaw, biting down hard enough to make a shark jealous.   
  
_Hypocrite_ —something inside of him thought. Something that sounded remarkably like Jim.  
  
All thoughts of his blond captain fled when Harrison said “I did not want them. I want you.”   
  
“You can stop with the flattery.” McCoy said dryly, popping open their pants. “I’m a sure thing.”   
  
Harrison chuckled and released him. Apparently his words were enough to stroke his ego back to the heights of their first meeting. McCoy scowled.   
  
“Now” the man purred, pushing him into the couch. McCoy gratefully sank into the thick cushions. Harrison knelt at his feet, slotting himself between his knees like he belonged there. “Shall we begin?”


	4. Chapter 4

A year ago, a freight ship manned by Ardanan merchants found the SS Botany Bay adrift and unresponsive in the asteroid belt around Zeta Leonis. Lacking the sophisticated technology of an exploratory starship, the crew nevertheless recognized the sleeper ship as of being Terran in origin and towed it to the nearest starbase where they were handsomely rewarded and were never heard from again.  
  
Within the next twenty-four hours, Section 31 destroyed all records of transaction along with the starbase, citing it as lost in an attack from hostile raiders. It was too early then to frame the Klingons who were seething over the destruction over the destruction of Rura Penthe but the operation succeeded in sowing the first seeds of distrust.  
  
SS Botany Bay was towed to the Jovian Moon Europa where it was fixed into orbit while the seventy-three cryopods were transported back to Earth. When he discovered what they were, Admiral Alexander Marcus chose one among them and woke him from his two hundred-fifty year sleep.  
  
He was christened John Harrison upon awakening and was forced to create weapons, his family just out of reach. John Harrison worked tirelessly to further the Section’s goals. He did not stop, angry and resentful beneath the veneer of civility, until nearly a half a year later in August; he grabbed one of his guard’s and snapped his neck.  
  
His assistant, a pretty omega who had enough brains to weld two things together, balked when he grabbed her throat, pinning her against the table. After the age of prolonged peace, they had forgotten the savage brutality of alphas and an omega’s inherent vulnerability. Twenty-third century alphas were little more than animals at a zoo, lazy and overweight, dependent on their keepers for survival. He was different, he was born a king.  
  
Khan was tazed with twice the amount of voltage necessary for a normal human being. The omega shuddered to a stop under his grip. He never saw her again.  
  
Immediately, Marcus realized that he had a problem. He had a twentieth century alpha on his hands, born to rule and conquer. Augments might have been the first catalyst for social reform but that did not change the context of the society he was brought up in. Alphas were leaders, a shining example everyone should abide by. Omegas were breeders, kept out of sight until their time. Betas were billions strong, uniform and uninteresting—cannon fodder.  
  
For him, sex was a sport to rank the members of a unit. It wasn’t supposed to be fun. His first had been an older girl tasked with initiating him to the agoge. He could still remember Dane as she dropped into his lap, a perfume of pheromones dabbed behind each ear to mimic heat. She had taken what she wanted from him and left, leaving him sticky and confused in his metal berth.  
  
In contrast, Marcus had provided him with omegas during his captivity, all reluctant volunteers that outlasted him to the end of his rut and asking him to call later. He had never learned to reciprocate or to suck another man’s cock. It was unthinkable to seek his partner’s pleasure before his own. But as McCoy lay panting beneath him, he realized he wanted to try.  
  
It was through McCoy’s patient coaching that he learned foreplay could be enjoyable, even vital in their play. The beta wasn’t demanding, barely protested even though his words weren’t anything but. McCoy did not beg but it was a close thing.

He ran his tongue up the other man’s cheek, tasting his tears.  
  
McCoy cursed at him up to his great-grandfather’s left testicle.  
  
Amused, he flipped the beta over, smothering his objections against the gold-trimmed cushions.  
  
“Christ, do you know how unsanitary these things are!?”  
  
His words were rendered irrelevant when he breathed across the tiny pucker, nipping the mound of flesh beside. The beta let out a small yelp and subsided, praying—“God help me”. He had no idea why it felt so appropriate.  
  
McCoy smelled the strongest here, muskier than his usual fleeting beta scent. He ground a thumb against the creased entrance, feeling the beta jerk yet grind down on the digit as though asking for more.  
  
“What the hell are you waiting for?” McCoy demanded, sounding strained. “An engraved invitation?”  
  
“Quiet doctor” He hushed, unable to admit that he had no idea about the mechanics of sex wherein the submissive partner (a critical misnomer in this case) did not produce enough lubricant for him to ease himself in without something tearing.  
  
“Dammit man, it’s just sex, not an open-heart surgery!”  
  
McCoy’s hips beat an impatient, staccato against the sofa. Khan Noonien Singh might have been too proud to give into the beta’s demands, might have pronounced him defective and requested a mate who wasn’t as loud, as abrasive, a proper mate, an appropriate mate, someone who wasn’t McCoy, but John Harrison had no such reservations and grabbed the other man’s cock and smeared the precum across the slit.  
  
The other man whined, undone by a single movement. He was squirming, mewling as he worked his hole open and froze when he inserted second finger.  
  
“Ugh” McCoy wheezed, legs trembling as though unable to decide whether to stop or to continue. “Not an omega.” He said defeated, even as he took the fingers in up to the second knuckle. “Need prep.” The beta tossed a disgruntled look backwards, knees spreading open like a flower in spring. “Semen” he huffed, “Is not an acceptable form of lubrication.”  
  
He frowned. Sex in the twenty-third century was turning out to be more complicated than he thought. His family had all been alphas, powerful and extraordinary. Experience had taught him seducing another alpha was a waste of resources which meant that most ruts were spent on whatever females or male omegas they could find.  
  
Ruts were a weakness, disruptions within their carefully constructed plans. Even their keepers admitted as much when they found several alphas on their hands, coming into rut at the same time. Initially, he had wanted this encounter over with but McCoy had other ideas.

The beta lunged sideways to grab his bag, a nondescript medical kit, fumbling with the buttons and straps as though his fingers, a surgeon’s fingers, an artiste’s, had turned to lead. He cursed and threw him a jar of topical cream which he stared at in blank confusion.  
  
“What is this?”  
  
McCoy whipped around, nearly head-butting him on the chin.  
  
“Are you serious?!”  
  
Beta males did not lubricate which was why they held no interest for most alphas. Too much trouble.  
  
“Just my luck.” McCoy was moaning but in despair than any desire or want. “Jim is going to laugh. Hell, Geoff will laugh and maybe put me out of my misery. Do you even know what you’re doing? Can you see unicorns?”  
  
He really didn’t want the names of other men coming out of the beta’s mouth.  
  
“Show me” He demanded, thrusting the jar back under the other man’s nose. McCoy raised an eyebrow, biting around the edge of his lips. He was tempted to kiss him again—it was very distracting.  
  
He stripped his wet shirt off in an excellent use of his breeding. Slowly, McCoy popped the jar open and dipped two fingers inside. Setting it aside with care, he slid back to his needs, each movement like a motion-capture for him to commit to memory. The beta pressed his forehead against the crook of one elbow, breathing hard and fast in anticipation as finally, the fingers slipped in.  
  
The doctor worked himself open like he was being paid. He found himself utterly fascinated by the sight and reached out before he knew that he meant to. “Stop” he ordered, grabbing the other man’s wrist.

“Oh for the love of—“ McCoy groaned. “This was a bad idea.”  
  
He ignored him.  
  
“You have been terribly naughty haven’t you Leonard?”  
  
McCoy choked at the name, a curious reaction that bore a closer observation.  
  
“No one’s called me that in a long time.” The man confessed, sagging with an unseen weight. With an agreeable hum, he pistoned his hips forward, driving the fingers in to the last inch.  
  
“I cannot imagine why.” He hissed, tugging on the unruly cowlicks until the beta’s head was twisted at an angle, throat bobbing mildly when their eyes met. “It’s an old name, never terribly popular, a traditional name, a family name. Something your mother might have called you if you were in trouble. Or maybe it was your father.”  
  
He slapped the other man’s arse, feeling him jerk and curse as though shot. The beta stared at him balefully and he swatted him again, and again until the resentment faded and there was a bright red handprint, like a tattoo, stamped across the man’s backside.  
  
He carelessly snagged the jar of topical cream and took out a generous scoop, spilling the rest across the man’s damp skin. Terribly clumsy on his part but pleasing to the eye. He slathered the rest from the delectably twitching arsehole down to the perineum, spreading the slick between his thighs.  
  
He nudged the man’s legs closed and thrust at its apex, pushing the fingers in as deep as they could go. McCoy cursed and spat, breath hitching with every stroke, muscles bunching and rolling around one shoulder as he clawed at the cushions, fighting to hold on.  
  
The beta came with a yowl, his cock perfectly ordinary as it splashed hot seed across his belly and chin. He spun him around, nearly folding him backwards against the sofa. McCoy let out a small whimper and looked away as though ashamed when he licked his mouth, the first time he’d tasted anyone in this manner.  
  
The night was still young and he was still hard, cock riding on the soft jut of the beta’s hip.  
  
The rut had begun in earnest and the McCoy knew it, he could smell it just as he could smell him. His eyes dilated like the wild disks of Saturn, pheromones working their mysteries on his indomitable prey.  
  
And for a moment, he forgot everything.

 

 

“I can’t.”  
  
“You will.”  
  
McCoy couldn’t remember the last time he’d been allowed to take a breath. Harrison pushed in without resistance, his balls flush against his ass like it might like to get to know them even better. His eyes rolled back, dick tingling as it rose in half-salute from between his legs—something he’d been sure wasn’t possible without some heavy-duty performance enhancers.  
  
Everything felt sticky, blinding and overbaked like he’d rolled in a pan of peach cobbler fresh from the oven. “Not for nothing” He grunted as sweat gathered at his chin and dotted the sheets beneath. “But this doesn’t happen to me.” The other man rolled his hips forward, swelling with the desire for a mate conquered. “Usually” he bit out, choking back a series of whimpers as though he could somehow bury them in his gut and make them disappear. “Ever.”  
  
Harrison seemed delighted at the sounds he made and fought to coax them out. His fingers wandered, long and tapered like a pianist’s perfecting his art. They cupped the spent balls and squeezed his tortured length. The other man could have twisted his dick off and he wouldn’t have noticed. He didn’t just didn’t care. Caught between the thin line of pain and pleasure with one foot against the heady rush of his own rut starting low in his belly and a fucking black out, he wanted it over with. He was pushing forty. It just wasn’t natural dammit.  
  
He greedily sucked air; face pressed against the damp pillows because smothering himself to death seemed like a really good idea. McCoy didn’t know what the fuck. Harrison was big, perfect, gorgeous, _alpha_ and yet had stayed with him even when his back gave out, losing its structural integrity after the third hour of his rut. An omega would have done better. Hell maybe two, three, four years ago, when he was still smarting from the divorce, he could have given the other man a run for his money. Even Pam had gotten exhausted with the prolonged foreplay a year into their marriage and she had a dominating streak the length of the Mississippi.  
  
As Spock might have said—it was illogical.  
  
(Don’t think of Spock, oh god, don’t think Spock)  
  
But Harrison was faltering, his measured thrusts (as though McCoy was the one going through a rut and he was just along for the ride) disintegrating into jerky, human imperfection as he was knotted a second time. He let out a stifled cry, his vision going static-white like a bad reception. He slumped to the sheets and Harrison followed, finally sated enough to curl up together.  
  
They went to sleep.  
  
The alarm woke him up an hour and a half later.

“Work” He groaned automatically, punching the snooze button and swinging his legs out of bed. He scowled at Harrison who washed and cleaned in the short time he was out, lounging on the dry side like a large predatory cat, his skin gleaming with droplets of water.  
  
McCoy tore himself away, lest he give into the temptation of trying to lick them all off. “What,” he snarked, “too much for you to get me a towel?”  
  
Harrison shrugged.  
  
“I prefer you this way.”  
  
“A full sentence, that’s good.” McCoy debated the merits of a shower versus showing up late at the hospital. It was a hospital; they had to have decon shower somewhere. “Feelin’ better?”  
  
“Quite”  
  
He quirked an eyebrow. “You sure you ain’t part Vulcan?”  
  
“Now doctor,” Harrison admonished. “We were getting on so well.”

He grinned. “Watch it, my first officer’s a Vulcan.”

Harrison made a thoughtful noise and followed him to the door, naked and looking like every teenager’s wet dream. McCoy couldn’t help the spell of déjà vu as the other man stood, head cocked and expectant, overlapping with a certain blond in mind. “Yeah?”

The man kissed him.

He took a taxi to the hospital trying hard not to squirm in his seat. His cabdriver feigned ignorance, rolling down the windows and blasting on some bubbly pop music he hadn’t the heart to agree with. Geoff, because he was a terrible person as well, had no such compunctions about the details of his personal life and asked slyly, “Was it any good?”  
  
McCoy took the proffered lollipop from his friend’s hand and popped it into his mouth, chewing its coffee-flavored rind messily around the paper stick. He grabbed a quick sonic shower, earning odd looks from a pair of orderlies.

He knew he looked like a vagrant, half-shaven, the sonic barely enough to chase the musk of an alpha off his skin. Geoff’s clothes were about two sizes too small so he was forced to replicate some scrubs for himself and put them on. When he was finished, the other doctor stared at him with serious eyes.

He knew what that meant. Breathing deep, he steeled himself as he greeted Lucille Harewood’s devastated parents.

  
  
“I need a smoke.”  
  
“You don’t smoke Len.”  
  
“Maybe that’s what I want you to think.”  
  
A heartbeat later he asked, “How long has the treatment stopped working?”  
  
“A week ago.” Geoff said, handing him a cup of toxic sludge.

McCoy hurriedly gulped it down, praising the other man for being a good friend. He scalded his tongue, feeling some of the white-laced fog lift from his brain. His body felt like a wreck and he, as the other doctor pointed out, was walking bow-legged. He’d been well-fucked and felt great, when he wasn’t walking, sitting, lying down, engaging in human interaction.

“It was working and then it just stopped. Tom wouldn’t hear of it of course and the treatment continued and now...” Geoff drifted off, expression turning apologetic. “I’m going to be honest here Len. I didn’t call you because of Lucille.”  
  
Figured

He sighed.

“Then you best tell me what was worth getting me on a flying death trap.”

 

“I had a father.” McCoy began without a preamble, dropping down on the bench beside Harewood. “He was sick and he was dying, no treatment. So he asked me to end the suffering. I did and lo’ behold, three months later, they found a cure.” He took a breath, blinking his eyes rapidly at the sheer weight of the memories invoked with those short words. “The thing is, my dad was real sick. He was on dialysis because his kidneys were shot, his liver gone. His heart was bad and if he’d survived, he might have had months in bed drugged to the gills.”  
  
Thomas took a sharp breath as to let him know that he was listening. It was a lot more than he deserved, considering.  
  
“Are you willing to put your kid through that?”

 

To his surprise, Harrison had stayed. Or maybe it wasn’t a surprise. He was in rut after all. McCoy, however, had no such excuse.  
  
“I could get used to this.” He said quietly. “Having my own personal sex slave.”  
  
Harrison rumbled at the derogatory words, eyes pale like hoarfrost on a winter morning.  
  
“No lessons?” He asked, pheromones thick about him.  
  
McCoy quickly stripped out of his replicated scrubs, throwing his bag carelessly into a corner.  
  
“No lessons. Make it hurt.” He said, then added “Please.”


	5. Chapter 5

For the first time in a long while, he felt content.  
  
His basic needs had been met, he was warm, had food and a place to void himself. He had a mate who tended to his every need, pliant and willing like an omega yet with the strength of an alpha in him.  
  
But something had changed since his return. McCoy’s scent had become more complex, richer, like garnish or honey-glaze across a holiday roast. Simple, yet indelible, undeniable.  
  
He rolled the beta over, ignoring the squawks of alarm. The smell was stronger now; more persistent, concentrated around the lovely swell of the doctor’s backside still dripping semen down the length of his thighs. McCoy grunted when he landed on his stomach, his limbs too clumsy and uncoordinated to hold him up, unresisting now that he was bruised and sated as per his request.  
  
“Mmph, again?”  
  
Dawn was approaching, the pale fingers of sunlight already sifting through the thick blinds. McCoy shifted his weight, turning invitingly against his side. His eyes, limpid with sleep turned their attention towards him in full, green jasper threaded with copper veins.  
  
“No, not yet.”  
  
He took a shower because not even he was narcissistic enough to bathe in the stink of his own musk. It was fast drowning out his mate’s subtle pheromones and that was unacceptable. McCoy barely twitched when he got up. He noticed that his head was clearer, thoughts no longer animalistic though his cock twitched a little at the wanton splay of limbs, the beta’s skin flushed against the rumpled sheets.  
  
The shower felt good and he debated the merits of hot water versus sonic, cleanliness and the permanent erasure of the scents. In the end, he took a damp towel back to bed, leaving wet footprints in his wake. The beta got up with a snort when he sat, rolling his eyes up at him.  
  
“Are you alright?” He asked after a thought. It seemed to be the appropriate action and even earned him a small smile.  
  
“’ll be fine.”

“Will you.”  
  
He marveled at the beta’s tenacity as he stood, picking through a minefield of shredded clothing and upturned furniture. Fondly, he stared at the chair pushed in the corner. He’d fucked McCoy on it twice. McCoy scowled as he followed his line of sight, the glare darkening exponentially.  
  
“Perhaps you could stay.” He coaxed.  
  
“Or you could put on your big boy pants and go home.” The beta snorted. “I’m a doctor, not an escort.”  
  
McCoy in his burgeoning receptivity smelled sweet and distracting. He nosed the other man’s jaw and he tilted his head back obligingly, neatly outlining his carotid artery and the jugular, the low bob of his Adam’s apple tucked in between.  
  
Memories flitted lazily through his mind. Harewood, his daughter, McCoy, their doctor. The girl was sick, dying, and her beta father was already grieving as though there could be a greater mercy than what he was offering to the little family of three.  
  
McCoy was desirable and he wished to put much of his scent on him as possible. Satisfied that no alpha would dare encroach upon his space, he stepped back.  
  
The beta gave him a look that said he wasn’t fooling anybody.  
  
“Kid, that kind of attitude is going to get you in trouble.”  
  
He frowned. “I am not a child.”  
  
“You were staying up at night waiting for the tooth fairy when I was gettin’ my license. Deal with it.”  
  
That was highly unlikely since his keepers had never allowed such heretical ideas to enter his mind. Also, he was born over three hundred years ago. He gave the beta one last lingering kiss, breathing deep into the smell of himself and the ocean salt. McCoy pushed him off with a grumble.  
  
“Guess I’ll see you later.”

 

When the knocks came, he thought it was McCoy returning early from the hospital. He even entertained the idea that it might be Section 31, tiring of his game of hide and seek. But it was a complete stranger who greeted him on the other side of the door, a blond with intense coloration in his hypnotic blue eyes.  
  
“Bones?”  
  
The stranger seemed startled when faced with an alpha, an alpha in the fading vestiges of a rut with only a towel to provide a measure of modesty. Immediately, the blond straightened his back, his hunched shoulders unfolding to fill out the lines of his leather jacket. After a moment of pause, the other alpha deflated, the fire dying in his eyes.  
  
Pitiful—it was why Marcus had so desperately needed his services. Men of twenty-third century were weak, servile, fit only as dogs or servants beneath the righteous heel of augments. His grip tightened around the doorknob when he caught the echoes of McCoy’s scent, soothing like a balm, almost imperceptible in its pervasion.  
  
“Sorry,” The blond alpha breathed out, disappointment palpable. “Wrong door” And he began to stalk away.  
  
“Looking for someone?” He called, privately thrilled at the possible challenge and alternatively appalled at this strategic misstep.  
  
The alpha stiffened before turning around. “Yeah, um” His eyes were unusually sharp as they raked past his naked torso and down his belly. Then back up. “This might sound weird but have you seen a guy around here? Our height, maybe a little taller, dark hair, green eyes.”  
  
“A beta?”  
  
The blond flinched at the appellation.  
  
“His _name_ is Dr. McCoy.”  
  
“You have come to the right place then.” He purred. The other alpha’s eyes went wide before shuttering. He arranged his mouth into harmless, polite form of greeting. “Please,” he said, stepping aside. “Come in.”  
  
Thankfully, the living space was intact and the blond entered gingerly, nose wrinkling at the heavy cloud of musk and pheromones.  
  
“You must be James.” He said mildly. The other alpha looked surprised though he really shouldn’t have been. Even if one of them hadn’t been sleeping inside a cryotube for the last two centuries, James T. Kirk was _famous_.  
  
“And you’re the guy he’s been fucking for the past two days.”  
  
Petty jealousy, how delightful.  
  
Yet he was pleased McCoy inspired such fierce loyalty among friends, even if the said friend was unsubtly trying to rescent the place with his own. He pulled his lips back.  
  
“Well James, how may I be of service?”

 

 

“Subtle” Geoff pointed out unhelpfully as he pulled back the curtains.  
  
“Please shut up” McCoy muttered, running a handheld regenerator over the visible aches, his skin tingling where the pen-length wand passed over like being splashed with soda water.  
  
“You know what this reminds me of?” Geoff continued in a faint lecturing tone. “It reminds me of all the times you slept in the hospital lounge because Pam kicked you out. After sex. I’m starting to think it’s a thing with you.”  
  
McCoy growled. It seemed to be his default reaction these days.  
  
“You’re a terrible friend.”  
  
“I’m an excellent friend.” The other man sniffed. “I’m trying to save you from the life of pseudo-masochism that can only end in tears.”  
  
He rolled his eyes. “Geoff, I don’t want to talk about it.”  
  
“Because that’s not a bad sign or anything.”  
  
But Geoff was saved from any bodily harm because he had coffee and anyone who can grab two mugs of coffee from a fully staffed break room, be it lukewarm or cold, had his eternal respect. So he chugged the damned thing. “How’s our patient this morning?”  
  
“Better.” Geoff admitted as they walked towards ICU. “She hasn’t gained consciousness yet but the fever’s down and she’s not in any pain right now.”  
  
“That’s good.” He said, ignoring the idiot whose whistle bounced down the entire hallway. “And Harewood?”

The other man's expression became grim.

 

He found what passed for a grocery store in a city where everyone drove on the wrong side of the road. It took several tries before he could figure out a way to maneuver his cart without running someone over. He thought it was a shame; mankind could definitely use less of whoever kept shuffling shit around on shelves.  
  
McCoy opened a bottle of water and drank it, feeling unseasonably hot in the climate-controlled produce aisle. Fresh greens and succulent vegetables beckoned toward him under a cloud of mist. He picked out several tomatoes and celery because they didn’t taste completely horrible when eaten raw. To round out his perfectly balanced diet of alcohol, chicken and fried doughnuts, he also grabbed a bag of oranges.  
  
A woman gave him an appreciative look from a tower of pink-themed panettone left over from Valentines. However, when he got close, she blanched and backed away with the speed the envy of an Olympic sprinter. McCoy raised his eyebrows at the unsubtle retreat and proceeded to the checkout aisle.

 

Wrestling a bag of groceries in one arm, he opened the door to his hotel room and stepped inside.  
  
The cleaning service must have been by considering the cover of citric lemon that blanketed the entire place. He could barely smell the sex beneath it, it was that strong. He blushed a little at the thought before berating himself for his embarrassment. Mankind had been toeing heats and ruts for the past ten thousand years. It was biology, it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of until it was.  
  
Like for instance when his ~~tormentor freeloader mate~~ two-nights-going-on-three was locked in a staring contest with his best friend.  
  
Oh fuck—  
  
As quietly as possible, he set the groceries aside. When the plastic bag scraped across the counters, Jim’s head snapped towards him so fast that he feared that the blond had given himself a whiplash.

On the other hand, Harrison moved with agonizing confidence, gracing him with a proprietary smile. He wanted to throttle the other man for putting him on the spot. McCoy didn’t know what happened but it didn’t take a genius to guess. A reactionary migraine knotted across his forehead, usually a prelude to beaming down on a planet as primitive as it was hostile. He almost wished he’d taken up on Geoff’s attempt at intervention.

Jim leaped to his feet, hurrying over as though that might—what? His mind drew a blank at their proximity, the familiar smell of rainclouds and ozone permeating the air.  
  
“Bones!” Jim exclaimed, forcing a cheery voice so fake that McCoy wondered how his nose remained the same, slightly off-center and crooked from that time he’d smashed into a tree trying to escape one alien fauna or another. No wonder the blond kept his phasers out at all times when animals were prowling about, even towards a greater xanthan marmot which had scandalized the Oran’taku dignitaries to no end.  
  
“Jim” He hissed, pulling him aside. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“You didn’t call.” Jim answered reproachfully.  
  
“What.”  
  
Jim looked tired, the five o’ clock shadow metasizing into a beard before his eyes. Blinking, he took a closer look. The man looked terrible.  
  
“Yesterday, you forgot to call.”  
  
Right, Jim, the Deltan, his fucking apartment.  
  
It was all coming back to him now.  
  
“Dammit Jim,” He sighed. “If I’ve told you once...”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, DADT, I’m _sorry_. But what gives Bones? It’s never bothered you this much before. You should have called.”  
  
“You’re not my mother Jim. I do not have to tell you about every single thing I do when I’m off duty. That’s what the green-blooded hobgoblin’s for.”  
  
Jim winced.  
  
A tinny alarm began to blare inside his head.  
  
“About that.” The blond coughed. “I have to tell you something.” He glanced towards Harrison. “But not here.”  
  
McCoy narrowed his eyes; the hand across his elbow was almost painful in its intensity. It didn’t look like Jim was doped up on stimulants but the symptoms were there as well as the crazy, mad-eyed awareness of a maniac.  
  
Immediately, the doctor side of him took over.  
  
“Have you taken any performance-enhancing drugs such as sildenafil or tadalafil in the past eight hours?”  
  
Jim gaped at him. “Have I what? What’s...” In the background, he had a distinct feeling Harrison was trying very hard not to laugh. “Who does that... no Bones! No!”  
  
“Just checking.” McCoy said gruffly. Drugs were no joke for a captain who could and would pass out from being too close to a sea urchin. “Alright.” He turned to Harrison. “Give us a moment. And you might want to put some clothes on sometime this century.”  
  
“Of course.” Harrison said in his smooth baritone. “Take as long as you need.”

 

They went to a nearby bar and everything came out in a rush.  
  
“I lost the Enterprise.”  
  
“Oh Jim.”  
  
Jim didn’t seem to notice, tossed back one glass after another. He stopped to take a breather and swallowed, tongue flitting out to wet his chapped lips.  
  
“Spock ratted me out. Got called to Pike’s office yesterday and I didn’t... I don’t know what to do Bones.”  
  
He swung an arm around Jim’s shoulder and the blond tensed before slowly relaxing against his warmth. “’m sorry about your couch.” The other man murmured, tilting his glass back and forth to see how the lights played out across its translucent curves. “It’s fine.” He replied, though not really. “You’d do it again anyway.”  
  
“Yeah, I would.”  
  
They sat in companionable silence.  
  
“I thought you were busy ‘consulting’.”  
  
Jim made finger quotations in case the verbal emphasis wasn’t enough. He quickly withdrew his arm. “Dammit Jim, could you make me sound any more like a call girl?”  
  
The other man leered.  
  
“Well now that you talk about it...”  
  
“Let it go Jim.” He advised. “Harrison” He congratulated himself for the barely there but not really pause in between. “He’s just convenient.”  
  
Jim looked unconvinced. “Real convenient.” He said in a clipped tone before brightening, “I could be convenient.”  
  
“That _wasn’t_ a complement.”  
  
He flagged the bartender for another glass and saw Jim slump against the counter through the corner of his eyes. “Hey kid,” McCoy said, poking Jim in the ribs. He thanked the bartender when he came back around to their end. “If there’s anyone to blame, it’s me.”  
  
Jim turned his head with a disbelieving snort.

“You? Why?”  
  
“I’m the ship’s CMO.” He reminded his captain. “I’m supposed to teach you infants ‘no’ means ‘no’.” He wrapped his fingers around the frosted glass. “Not that I’ve ever been good at it.”  
  
“I’m not a kid Bones.” Jim responded, looking annoyed.  
  
Somehow, the trickle of scotch got past the sudden lump in his throat.  
  
“I know Jim, I know.”


	6. Chapter 6

He had no idea what persuaded him to invite the other alpha in. Augments were meant to rule humans, inspire fear and respect, but all he achieved was hate. And for once, it was enough for him.  
  
He reveled in it. Who was James T. Kirk to call his mate in such a familiar manner? With fondness? Fully knowing that he had never once properly lain between the beta’s legs or tasted himself upon the cupid’s bow.  
  
He swelled with impropriety beneath the thin line of towel and Kirk flushed down to his throat, his eyes throwing daggers at him like Cooke when they were both vying for the position of unit leader. With a start, he realized that he had not indulged in lesser proclivities since his younger days, earlier days, before learning that it was unworthy of him to try. Weak were to be culled, not be toyed with.  
  
But McCoy was his. He was a good mate, superb if it were not for his gender and unfortunate betaness. Two nights they had laid together, two more than the captain ever had. Men were strange in their desires to be the first and unfortunately, Augments had inherited this perversion. And as Homo sapiens superior, he found it acceptable to be the last if he could not be the first.  
  
“You must not know him very well.” Kirk said sharply, breaking into his thoughts. The seven words bit in deep, inflaming him for reasons unknown. It must have shown on his face for the blond flashed him a razor-sharp grin, a bold move from Starfleet’s pet captain.  
  
Yet Kirk’s statement had merit. What did he know of the green-eyed beta who had ensnared them both? Their intimacy wasn’t anything that could be put into words. He knew that the man preferred to be on top rather than on the bottom even when he was being penetrated. He knew that McCoy had a truly deplorable weakness to sweets despite being a doctor. He knew that the man was an orphan like him, both parents dead. He knew that the beta had been married once, the faint line across his ring finger like a signal flare to his augmented eyes.  
  
“I don’t know which century you’re from but he’s not that old-fashioned.” Kirk continued. “He’d kick your ass if he knew you were calling him that behind his back.”  
  
An interesting bit of data, one dressed with personal experience. Men of twenty-third century were surprisingly candid in their use of expletives like the sailors of old, foot soldiers, the pawns, and yet shied away from the fundamentals of their society like a thing diseased.  
  
The blond sneered at him, the unlikeliest of expressions to cross his boyishly handsome face and spat, “You’re just a type.”  
  
Harrison growled.  
  
McCoy entered just then, carrying with him provisions. Kirk went to him immediately with the familiarity of a dog greeting its master. His lips curled. And yet, despite his scorn, he could not completely expunge jealousy from his bowels.  
  
“Of course.” He replied graciously when McCoy asked to be excused. It was the perfect time to leave. The rut was over, any gratitude on his part told by the fact that the beta still walked with his own two feet. But he remained at the hotel room, putting on clothes as McCoy had requested. He felt faintly annoyed with himself for the indecision. He was needed back at the Kelvin Archives, he needed to get back to Section 31 and his crew.

 

McCoy returned sometime past one in the morning disbelieving that he had stayed. He shared the sentiment.  
  
Weaving, the beta slumped on the couch and curled up stubbornly when he thumbed the line of his jaw, breathing in the faint trace of cologne, sweat, and alcohol and finally Kirk, imprinted across the breadth of his shoulder like his scent had been that morning when McCoy had gone out to work.  
  
McCoy slapped his hand away irritably. “Not in the mood.”  
  
Liar.  
  
But he ceded to the beta’s requests. Instead, he folded himself behind the other man’s six-foot frame, trying to replace Kirk’s scent with his own.  
  
“Why did you do that?” McCoy asked.  
  
For all he knew, the beta could have been referring to the way the tomatoes had been arranged on the coffee table. But really, there was only one answer. His handlers had always praised him for his straightforwardness.  
  
“He tried to claim you.”  
  
McCoy snorted to his answer, or maybe even Kirk himself.  
  
“Who, Jim?”  
  
“Kirk implied that you looked for certain characteristics in a partner.” He explained stiffly.  
  
McCoy rolled in the tight space until they were face to face, his knees skating perilously close to his testicles. He looked outraged and insulted all at once.  
  
“My wife was a dominant.” He said bluntly. “Guess he picked up on that.”  
  
“And I?” He asked wryly, not really expecting an answer.  
  
“You’re just an idiot with rut on the brain.” McCoy assured him.  
  
“Kirk?”  
  
“Jim” McCoy wet his lips, he followed. “Jim is family.”  
  
His tone struck a chord within him, oddly resigned and regretful. The beta sounded like the seventy-three surviving augments the night decided to leave Earth on the Botany Bay. In that moment, he understood. As loathed as he was to sympathize with inferior beings, he understood what the beta was saying.  
  
“And what would you do if somebody tried to take your family away from you?”

 

As he left, he thought about leaving a note but decided against it. What good would it do? McCoy was not a native, not of England nor of Earth.  
  
Regrettably, they would never meet again, not if everything went according to plan. But he kissed the beta one last time, wondering what kind of family they could have created had they born different people, had McCoy been born an omega, a woman, or even another augment.  
  
He kept throwing looks back even when he stepped out from the lobby as though trying to see if the doctor was following. He knew omegas did from time to time, drawn in by the alpha’s virility and their own carnal needs.  
  
A cab sat idle against a curb, its driver another alien. A truly detestable-looking creature with shriveled skin and tentacles crowning its head.  
  
“Eeyah” The alien greeted, “Vhere?”  
  
“The Kelvin Memorial Archives.”

 

 

McCoy was unsurprised to find himself alone on his fourth day in London, overcast skies, zero chance of rain. If he was honest with himself, he would have admitted that he was a little disappointed in the way things had ended with Harrison though there really was no good way to break things off with someone in between a one-night stand and an actual relationship.  
  
He heaved himself vertical, wondering if Jim had gotten back alright. Testing the hotel’s excellent water pressure for the first time since he checked in, he went in early to the transition of the nightshift into day, people stretching and yawning, a heavy aroma of coffee clinging to the air.  
  
Unusually alert, he checked in on Lucille and found no improvements in her status. Her vitals were relatively stable—if they could be called that, but she was a wan, pale thing tucked between the sheets, her skin almost beige against the knitted toy her parents had left for her.  
  
Almost like clockwork, her parents came in at six o’ clock on the dot. He and Rima exchanged few pleasantries while Thomas Harewood automatically went to his daughter’s bedside and felt her stick-thin wrists. “I don’t understand.” He said. “She was getting better.”  
  
McCoy sighed inwardly though he schooled his expression to that of a professional. “The treatment eased her symptoms but it’s not a cure. Lucille’s body is shutting down.”  
  
Rima Harewood burst into tears. He always hated this part; he was a doctor for god’s sake. If he could, he would have engineered the cure for Rushton Infection himself using just plywood and glue. But he knew intimately how sometimes the only thing he could do for a patient was to ease their pain.  
  
It was never an easy choice. The Voluntary Euthenasia Act of 2175 had shown the depraved lengths people would go to in order to preserve their power and faith, even at the cost of human suffering. Even now, there were doctors out there who thought themselves too good to offer their patients a dignified end. McCoy had very few illusions about himself and he knew that it was untrue.  
  
But Lucille was eight, what did children know of dignity?  
  
“I’m sorry.” He said finally, knowing that the words were hard to hear. Thomas nodded once, his expression pained and resentful.  
  
“Could you please give us a moment?”  
  
“Sure thing.”  
  
He closed the door behind him with an audible hiss. Outside, McCoy paced, feeling like he’d had one too many stim shots after a full-shift in the sickbay. The panorama of handprints down the length of one wall leapt out at him in sharp relief, its colors intense and mesmerizing.  
  
McCoy stared until a few minutes later, he realized he was staring, an orderly timidly asking if he needed anything. He snapped his head around, urgency winding his body into a tight knot. The orderly was male, _man_ , a submissive, an omega though not very obvious about it. “No” he responded, dismissing him entirely.  
  
He was not whom he wanted, he was wrong. The man reminded him of endless beaches and the scorching Mediterranean sun, the site of his honeymoon when he had married Pamela Branch straight out of medical school. He had flawless bronzed skin and a perfect oval face, platinum blond hair that fell in soft ringlets above his ears and amber eyes which reminded him of dark honey.  
  
“Thank you” he added per decorum but the damage had already been done. The man turned away, hurt and hunger knowing at his handsome face. He bit his tongue before he could make the situation any more awkward.  
  
Thankfully Geoff came to his rescue, wonderful, dependable Geoff who’d scraped his sorry ass off the tiles of a dive down in Atlanta after his divorced had been finalized. The same man who gave him a second chance by putting up the ticket money for a shuttle to San Francisco.

“Woah there” Geoff said in alarm, a steadying hand pressed against his clavicle. He leaned into it, until he could feel the other man’s heartbeat tattooed against his chest. Sadly, Geoff too was wrong and he backed off “Sorry” He rasped. “Been havin’ a bad morning.”  
  
“I’ll say.” His friend said sympathetically. “Need to—”  
  
There was a sudden boom of an unmistakable explosion in the distance. He crouched instinctively, arms folded around his head, the year’s worth of experience out in the black deeply ingrained in his bones. Geoff gave him a baffled look just as the screams began, tiny at first, but increasing in volume as though the biblical locusts had descended upon the building.  
  
Everyone sprinted to the nearest window, everyone except him because they were clearly suicidal. McCoy pulled Geoff along with him as they got behind a nurse’s station, activating a viewscreen. The streamlined monitor instantly displayed images of a towering smokestack breaching the London skyline.  
  
“Dear lord.” A nurse gasped, her hand crawling up to her mouth. An attractive Asian woman was reporting live as rescuers flew into the scene, evacuating the mobile and trying to extract the immobile. His stomach lurched when he heard ‘Kelvin Memorial Archives’ on the perfect pouting lips.  
  
“Everyone to their stations.” He said grimly when he saw the first of the ambulances being loaded up. “They’re bringing them in.”  
  
The Royal Children’s Hospital specialized in adolescent and childhood maladies but they were fully-equipped to accept the first of the victims in what the newscast was now calling the ‘Kelvin Archive Bombing’. Instantly, the austerity of the first floor (really inappropriate for a location with young children) was transformed into a makeshift trauma ward.  
  
They were wheeling in bodies after bodies, some of which were already dead on arrival, others who needed hot tea more than anything else. Cleaning a teenager’s flayed ankles as she stared intently, he almost didn’t notice the nurse when he was told that there was someone on the line for him by the name of Jim Kirk.  
  
Swearing, he left the girl in the capable hands of the nurse and took the call floors above in Geoff’s office where it was quieter. He knew in times of crisis, a person would automatically assume the worst and Jim had already seen more than his share of dead friends and family.  
  
He tried to make himself presentable as possible, taking off the lab coat so he no longer looked like he worked at a slaughterhouse.  
  
“It’s me.” He said to Jim’s heartfelt “Thank God”.  
  
Jim looked almost as exhausted as he felt, like he’d gone toe-to-toe with their chief of security in a sparring session after three mentally invigorating games of chess with Spock. He was in his dress uniform, crisp and grey, his hat crushed against his elbow.  
  
“You alright?”  
  
“I should be asking you that. I mean, when I couldn’t reach you...”  
  
“Turned my phone off when I came in.” McCoy explained gruffly, even though it was protocol and the blond should have known better.  
  
Jim breathed out noisily and said, “Did you know that I came this close to ordering Scotty to beam you up anyway even though I’m not the captain anymore? Except Uhura reminded me that you were a doctor and you could be in surgery or something.”  
  
“Very considerate of you.” McCoy quipped, “Jim, I’m okay.”  
  
“I know that _now_. Fuck.” The blond rubbed his mouth. “It’s a mess, the brass is calling a meeting with all captains and first officers earthside.”  
  
“Go” He said firmly. “I’ll let everyone know I’m alright. Call me when you’re done.”  
  
“I will” Jim swore and the screen turned back to its cheery background of tropical fish popping bubbles.  
  
Christ, he thought blankly.  
  
“Len” Geoff called as he slipped into his office. “You need to come see this.”

 

Rima Harewood was crying as her mother clucked soothingly and patted her hands, glaring at them as though they were the source of her daughter’s despair.  
  
“Tommy” Geoff explained with a troubled look.  
  
McCoy understood. It could have been the lighting simulating artificial sunlight but Lucille looked better. Her breathing was strong, no longer dead quiet like a corpse but peppered with little snores of a mildly congested respiratory system. Her kidney and liver function was diminished but active after being on the dialysis for so long.  
  
“Malfunction?” He asked, hoping.  
  
Geoff waved his hand. “Got a tech to check it twice. Lucille is... in remission.”  
  
Rima began to cry harder.  
  
“How?”  
  
The other man shook his head.  
  
“I don’t know. The records show that her condition began improving significantly near eight-thirty, around the time Tommy...”  
  
Thomas Harewood  
  
“What would you do if somebody tried to take your family away from you?” He echoed suddenly.

“What?”  
  
McCoy swallowed. “She was his daughter. He loved her.”  
  
Geoff thinned his lips. 

“Forty people are dead. Whatever Tommy did, you know there was no guarantee. A week from now, a month? A year? How could he do this?” 

He shook his head. “I don’t know but I need to get back. Will you be alright?”  
  
Geoff let out a depreciating chuckle.  
  
“The hospital’s managed without your legendary hands since 2091.”  
  
McCoy managed a weak grin. “Good man.”  
  
He switched his comm. on, bracing himself.  
  
“McCoy to Enterprise.” He barked, “Scotty, I know you’re there. Beam me up.”

 

McCoy materialized in the middle of a warzone.  
  
Heart caught in his throat, he pressed himself up against a wall as security ran past him and around a corner where they were immediately spat back out like protein bars from a vending machine. He went to the downed officers and saw that it was too late for them. A large hole was burnt into the center of a man’s chest. The poor bastard didn’t even feel it.  
  
He saw that a jumpship was hovering just outside, firing indiscriminately into the large conference room in the opposite wing. Crawling, he slammed a hand against a wall panel and armed himself with a phaser rifle. He had never been good at hand-to-hand (unfortunately, he, like Jim, preferred good old brawling over techniques and finesse) or weapons training but in fact, he was an excellent shot.  
  
McCoy put his eye to the scope, looking for a way to disable the shuttle somehow. The engines maybe? The turbines? The turrets? Through the crosshairs, he identified the make of the shuttle. It was official; he had spent enough time in the damned flying deathtraps to be familiar with the different types and classes. Enough to know that a little thing like a phaser rifle wouldn’t get through.  
  
Gritting his teeth, he aimed at the cockpit anyway, hoping that he’d buy enough time for the actual reinforcements to arrive or at least, help everyone evacuate. He broke the glass, wind whipping around in frenzy as the turbines sucked everything in. His finger brushed against the trigger.  
  
“ _John_?”


	7. Chapter 7

His crew was dead.  
  
He returned without fanfare. The security waved him in, bright points of light mapping the angles of his face. Without being prompted, the elevator slid open and he descended to the world down below, Section 31, Starfleet’s dirty little secret hidden behind its greatest symbol of hope.  
  
The modified torpedoes were no longer where he left them but he thought nothing of it. Sometimes, different projects were shuffled around to avoid detection from Fleet inspectors despite their well-greased hands and even greasier smiles. Lieutenant Liao blanched when he caught sight of him, his partner, a statuesque woman with black coals for eyes giving him a quick once over before pressing a button on her side of the console.  
  
When he went to confront Marcus, he knew that the game was up. He had failed. Marcus _knew_.  
  
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”  
  
“I was hoping that I had enough time yes.” He replied blandly, feet parted and his hands clenched behind him at a military rest. “Where is my crew?”  
  
Marcus steepled his fingers under his chin.  
  
“We had a deal Harrison,” The man drawled. “You make me weapons and your crew gets to live.”  
  
“You have your weapons.”  
  
Marcus shrugged, looking all for the world like a father indulging a particularly worthless son. He drew a phaser from under his desk and pointed it at him.  
  
“So I do.”  
  


It had taken every ounce of discipline in his body not to kill Marcus when he’d pulled a phaser on him, instead choosing to escape to plan a prettier revenge. The man’s life was rooted in Starfleet and for that, Starfleet had to be destroyed. He would lay waste to all that Marcus held dear, including his daughter and the rest of Earth.

He had been too late to save them, his crew, his family, just because he’d been weak enough to submit to the temptations of a beta slut who had no right seducing an alpha like they were equals. Now he was being run down on the streets like a common criminal, as though he had not claimed an entire country for himself three hundred years ago.  
  
He jumped in a cab, barked “Royal Children’s Hospital” with no real plan in mind, only that he had been drawn there first, met McCoy as a result of it and he needed to get back. If he could not have his crew, he would have his revenge. And what budded as a simple distraction, something to keep the feeble minds engaged, culminated into hatred. 

  
Five minutes past nine, the secretive Section 31 headquarters was a hole in the ground, twenty-five incinerated on the spot and the rest condemned to a slow, linger death as rescue workers raced against the clock to find them all. Marcus hadn’t been one of them; the admiral had left for San Francisco the moment he fled.

Stealing a jumpship was child’s play, Section 31 almost criminal in its institutional arrogance. As he tossed the portable transwarp beaming device in the seat beside him, he idly wondered what aliens dignitaries would think of United Earth’s true, savage colors. Perhaps Marcus hadn’t needed him after all.  
  
He turned his head when bright lightning flared across his windshield.  
  
McCoy stood framed by the broken window, his skin awash in the lurid crimson of the alarms that became a death knell for the Daystrome Conference Room. He looked utterly magnificent with a phaser rifle clenched tight in his healer hands. Not even the appearance of James T. Kirk could spoil the image and he wished to gloat to the golden alpha—see what I have done, see what I have made your doctor _do_.

He beamed out.

 

Long before they came into his line of sight, he heard them, three sets of feet, two familiar, the other unknown. One hated, the other beloved enough that it might as well have been. He braced himself as though being punished. His lone keeper eyed him warily even as the voices spilled down from the hallway, loud and clamoring, terrified and distressed like the children they were.  
  
“Bones, you cannot be fucking serious.”  
  
“Captain, it is not unreasonable for Dr. McCoy to examine the prisoner. He is the Chief Medial Officer of this ship.”  
  
“Damn straight.”  
  
“I know that!” A shock of gold burst into view as Kirk stormed in, his hair in wild disarray as he threw him an obvious look of disgust and impotent anger, his knuckles still raw and bruised. “But it’s...”  
  
McCoy hissed in a low voice, “I know.”  
  
“Captain” He greeted silkily, standing up from his Spartan accommodations. He turned towards McCoy who gave him an unreadable look as Kirk hovered protectively at his side, hands clenching and unclenching as though undecided whether to physically remove him from the spot. Had it been him, he would have chained McCoy to the bed and gagged him to stifle his protests.  
  
Unaware of such thoughts McCoy said, “Jim, you let me on this ship for one reason and it wasn’t to sit on my thumbs looking busy. Now you ain’t got a lick of sense in you but even you know better than to go off half-cocked to a Mexican standoff.”  
  
Kirk let out an aggravated groan.  
  
“I said no more metaphors!”  
  
The third member of the party, Mr. Spock, raised an eyebrow in response.  
  
“Tough” The beta replied, creating a small opening through the transparent wall. “Arm” He demanded and he threaded his hand through the hole, making a fist in a show of quiet compliance.  
  
“You seem unhappy to see me Doctor.” He mused darkly. “Have I displeased you in some way?”  
  
McCoy did not answer him though Kirk did through a myriad of expressions that settled into black fury on his youthful face. The beta drew his blood, not ungently, from the crook of his elbow, his palm hot like a brand against his inner arm. “You should be aware that I am not responsible for the ship’s unfortunate... malfunction.”  
  
Green eyes narrowed in suspicion.  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
“Bones” Kirk warned.  
  
McCoy turned to glare and he quickly twisted his arm, pinching the nerve cluster the doctor had so considerately threatened him during their first meeting. The beta’s knees went, head slamming against the barrier. The vial of blood went spinning across the floor as Kirk took his phaser out as though his little toy could do more than to hit him with recoil.  
  
“Bones!”  
  
He kneeled down, gently caressing the beta’s wrists. His arm no longer blocking the opening, he could smell the other man, however faintly. It was... soothing.  
  
McCoy glared at him.  
  
“Harrison, if you hurt him, I swear...”  
  
“Jim, shut up.”  
  
“Captain” He set reprovingly, standing back up. “You should not make promises you cannot keep.”  
  
McCoy jerked his arm back and he reluctantly let go.  
  
Kirk gritted out, “Bones, please tell me you have enough. If you need more, I’ll get Chekov to beam it out of him.”  
  
“Yeah Jim, I have enough.”  
  
“Good” Kirk said with a tone of finality. He cocked his head in interest. “Now get out of here, me and Harrison have to talk.”

 

He felt empty as he threw Kirk down. He posed no challenge to him, never a serious competition. Men of twenty-third century were too weak to simply take what they desired. An alpha should have known better, Kirk should have never let his beta out of his sight.  
  
In contrast, Spock was a more credible foe but he too was only human. And even worse, he was only half. Try as he might, he could not bluff him from taking his crew back. The Enterprise was a crippled little thing, adrift in space. But she also contained those who were most precious to him.  
  
“Shall I destroy you, Mr. Spock? Or will you give me what I want?”  
  
“Even at the cost of the Doctor?”  
  
The Vulcan was clever, trying to probe at his imagined weaknesses. But he had come too far to stop. He and McCoy had already said all that could be said in the privacy of the examination room, away from prying eyes and the curious ears of the guards that wove around them curiously. How easily he could have escaped, drag the beta down against the thin walls and take him where everyone could see. Even now he could smell his cloying sweetness, too close even when separated by the black.  
  
On the ground, Kirk was ordering his pet Vulcan to refuse, to save their family. He dug his nails into the arms of his chair. A captain’s chair, the veritable throne from which he would rule his augmented brothers and sisters and soon, the entire universe.  
  
“We’ve made our choices. He chose his family, I chose mine. Now, Mr. Spock, lower your shields.”


	8. Chapter 8

Jim moved Harrison to the secondary medical bay as a precaution against their incoming guest. They’d already found one frozen body in a torpedo of all places, who knew what other nasty surprises were waiting for them?  
  
And fuck if his arm didn’t ache, though he’d be damned before asking someone else to come down here to help.  
  
McCoy carefully distilled a beaker of Harrison’s blood, unable to believe that after three-hundred years, augments had returned to Earth.  
  
Notes during the Eugenics War were sparse to say the least but he’d gone over them thoroughly in the lull between having Jim and Spock sprain their brains deciding what to do with Harrison. The reports had been, to borrow from the Hobgoblin’s dictionary, fascinating. 

Six guards fidgeted nervously from their post, six guards who couldn’t help but split their attention between their prisoner and him. Despite the pheromone blocks he injected himself with prior to relieving Dr. Sanchez, McCoy wrinkled his nose at the faint scent of pre-rut phase of his reproductive cycle, spicy and hot like he was playing an alpha.

Although the category alpha, beta and omega were no longer used in the polite society outside obscure medical vernaculars, they were the easiest markers to delineate the different sexes. The fact that he smelled at all meant that the smartest thing he could do was to take a sonic and a nap so obviously, he wasn’t going to do it. It was embarrassing but manageable. Jim had actually listened to him for once as he went over every inch of him with a tricorder, each number sending his eyebrows ever higher and wondering if the scanner wasn’t broken.  
  
McCoy wasn’t an idiot. He knew the effect was temporary. But he also wasn’t about to let to opportunity go to waste.  
  
The redshirts collectively balked when he asked them to clear the room for privacy. But he steamrolled over them knowing that while Jim was distracted with their visitor, this could be the only chance he might have with Harrison.

Harrison was an anomaly, referred to himself as Khan when according to the records, that was a statistical impossibility. Under the pretense of a physical examination, he monitored the alpha’s heart rate, metabolism and respiration, marveling at the genetic wonder sitting on the biobed.  
  
Over three-hundred years ago, Harrison was born with the strength of five men, intelligence and thought process as the result of trying to achieve the perfect human being. He wondered what might have happened if those crazy whackjobs had succeeded, if Khan and the others had conquered the remaining three-quarters of the free Earth.  
  
“Playing the whore Leonard?” the augment addressed him in a startlingly intimate voice. “What would your captain think?”  
  
Setting his tricorder down, McCoy replied “My captain isn’t here right now.”  
  
Harrison trapped him between his knees, an ankle slung casually over his inner knee. His hands shot out as he sought to balance himself, one landing on the other man’s bicep, the other across his thigh. The bastard raised an elegant eyebrow and asked “Do you really think he will thank you for this?”  
  
“Jim doesn’t always know what’s good for him.”

“And the others? The people you are so desperately trying to save.”

McCoy had a hypo in his right pocket, obvious and bulging, pinned by Harrison’s sinewy weight. _And he could not believe he fucking fell for this shit again_ —the man spun him around and pressed him down on the biobed. He thought about resisting, punching the augment in the face for posterity if anything else but decided against it because he was the bigger person and there were greater things at stake here but mostly because he was the bigger person.

“Do you think I got to where I am by giving a fuck about what everyone says?”  
  
“An interesting mindset” Harrison observed, pressing his cock flush against his ass. “But it still does not explain what you hope to achieve from this.”  
  
“Doesn’t it?” He countered, willing to be guided but not had, turning his face away at the last moment when Harrison leaned in. The alpha nipped his ears reproachfully, nuzzling into his hair. “You’ve been in a three-hundred year coma. This is the only thing I can make you understand. The twentieth century might as well have been the Dark Ages as far as I’m concerned but here’s hoping that it gets through your thick skull.”  
  
It was official, he wasn’t an idiot, he was _the_ idiot.  
  
“At the end of the day” McCoy panted, “we’re just two strangers who happened to hit it off. You have your family to take care of and I have mine. But for now, it seems to me like they could both use your help.”  
  
“What would you have me do?” Harrison asked in disinterest, his hands only perfunctorily rubbing the gland behind his ears where the smell was the strongest. He arched in response, a moan stifled only by the grace of the fact that he was never into exhibition. “Help Jim.”  
  
McCoy might as well have taken a cattle prod to the man.  
  
Harrison got off of him so quickly he might have been offended if he wasn’t so relieved.  
  
Heart beating a hundred miles a minute he quickly said, “Jim’s a good man.”  
  
The other man cocked his head.  
  
“You believe that you can still salvage this situation.”  
  
“I learned from the best.” He replied grimly.  
  
“You are wasted here.” A cool hand cupped his face and he leaned against it in sheer delight. There was an audible gasp as Harrison finally said, “You would have made a magnificent alpha.”  
  
“Is that really the best you can do?” He snarked, unable to help himself.  
  
“I shall do you one better.” Harrison declared, smiling in spite of himself. “But first, I want you to promise that my crew, my family will be safe.”  
  
“The captain will make sure...”  
  
“No!” Harrison said vehemently. “Not your precious Kirk, not Commander Spock or any of the officers in your Fleet. I want you.”  
  
McCoy swallowed, “I swear.”

 

“Are you out of your goddamned mind Commander?! I’m a doctor not a torpedo technician!”

Spock looked unperturbed as he took him aside. “And that is precisely why I believe that you are best suited for this task. If you have any viable alternatives, I will gladly differ to your expertise.”

He let out an aggravated groan. Uhura, fucking Uhura of all people looked up, her eyes glittering with interest. On the other hand, Spock only looked mildly thoughtful. The Federation did support free marriage.

“I fucked him.” He spat. “I fucked Harrison or Khan or whatever he’s going by and that’s why I’m going to castrate _Jim—_ ” Spock’s eyebrow left the vicinity of his face. “And the last person you should be asking!”

When no reaction was forthcoming, he threw his arms up in disgust.

“Fine, just, fuck—just bring them back alive.”

 

Jim died.

Jim was... Jim was dead.  
  
McCoy sank into his chair, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to think. It was as though something vital inside of him had broken and was left to hemorrhage messily inside his chest, bubbling into tiny hiccups that threatened to break free from the confines of his throat.  
  
Dimly, he was aware of the ship-wide announcement that John Harrison had somehow survived the crash of the U.S.S. Vengeance and was now being pursued on foot by none other than Commander Spock. Possibly to kill him if the Vulcan’s grief had been any indication. But it didn’t matter, he didn’t care. McCoy buried his face in his hand just as a tribble snuggled up to his hand and cooed as though trying to offer him comfort.  
  
He stared at it, fingers hovering disbelievingly over its lush pelt like it was a mirage. He stood abrupt, chair crashing beneath the desk. He touched Jim one more time, still warm under the palm of his hands, almost as though he might start breathing any second.  
  
“Doctor?” Sanchez asked, her eyes smudged slightly.  
  
“I can fix this.” He said stupidly, bringing up data on every simulation he ran on Harrison’s blood. “Get me one of those cryotubes!” He barked at an orderly who jumped to attention. “We’ll need to preserve him as best we can. For fuck’s sake, be careful with that body!”  
  
“What’s going on?” Carol Marcus asked, eyes wide at the sudden burst of manic energy.  
  
“Help me.” He begged her and punched the intercom. “Sickbay to bridge, I need Harrison alive.”  
  
  
“Bones? Bones, Bones.” Jim repeated as though it was the only word or sound he could make.  
  
“Yeah Jim,” McCoy said hoarsely as he held his best friend’s hand. “’s me.”  
  
His arm was fucked from where it had been caught seventy-two times against live torpedoes. Deep muscle bruising, couldn’t do a thing about it except rest and let it heal on its own time. Thankfully, he was ambidextrous. When Jim stuttered his first series of breaths in life after death, he nearly wept.  
  
After hours of intensive care, flushing Jim’s body of irradiated cells and reviving the damaged organs, they signed off on the non-disclosure contract drawn up by Lieutenant Uhura whose eyes were suspiciously red-rimmed. His hands shook, even as he injected himself with stims and a muscle relaxant for his injured arm. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to let anyone else take care of him, take care of Jim.  
  
That was his job, had been since they met on the shuttle.  
  
It wasn’t until Sanchez noticed pink smears across everything he touched that he realized he was bleeding. The palm of his hands was raw with radiation burns and he found himself shunted aside as Spock took over, synthesizing a cure for death from Harrison’s blood.  
  
He sat down in his office and cried for perhaps the first time since losing his father. By the divorce hearing, he thought he’d simply run out of tears.  
  
Maybe it was the events of the last twenty-four hours crashing down on him, people dead on the ground, crew members he would never see again. Troubles came in threes—he remembered. Eventually, he’d been so doped up he let Sanchez declare him unfit for duty and enforce a mandatory five hour rest.  
  
But he couldn’t sleep. Jim was dead. Now he was alive, no guarantee he would survive the Fleet inquiry. All he could see was his captain in the beginning stages of rigor mortis, so fucking brave and reckless. He should have hypoed the blond in the beginning to save himself the trouble.  
  
John Harrison—or Khan he called himself apparently, pretentious little shit, who did he think he was? Madonna?—was in the brig. It was the most secure location on the wounded Enterprise as the bridge did its best to field distress calls from the city and orders from above, contradicting reports of a black starship filing in across all channels.  
  
No one yet knew Jim was dead.  
  
He choked back another sob, struggling to maintain some semblance of control as he passed dazed ensigns seeking familiarity and comfort from the wrecked hallway.  
  
Jim was not dead, he told himself in a mantra, Jim was alive and he found himself face-to-face with his world’s Khan Noonien Singh.

“Doctor” Harrison greeted politely, the sterile lights doing nothing for his complexion after the blood donation.  
  
“I think we’re a little past that, don’t you?”  
  
The other man nodded to acknowledge this point. “The captain is well I presume?”  
  
He looked up sharply. Harrison shrugged.  
  
“As far as I am aware, cloning is outlawed in Federation space. Since you have asked of me no less than a quart of my blood, I assume somebody was in grave need. Someone you cared about enough to come back to me.”  
  
“He’ll live.” He said stubbornly, then added “So will Lucille.”  
  
Harrison frowned. “I beg your pardon?”  
  
No you don’t—McCoy laughed with cynic delight.  
  
“The girl whose father you blackmailed into killing all those people.”  
  
“Come now doctor,” Harrison soothed in an awful parody of comfort. “They were hardly innocents.”  
  
“Leonard” He said steadily, unscrewing the cap off his flask. “Or McCoy. The least you could do is call me by my name.”  
  
“Leonard” Harrison echoed and he felt a vicarious thrill grip his stomach. So rarely had he heard his name pass through the other man’s lips and never during their wildest explorations, teasing, taunting. He thought it was an odd quirk at first; he had a few of his own. Now he knew better. Harrison saw them as inferiors, second-class, fit only to be slaves. He took a sip and choked down its bitterness.  
  
“How does it feel to know that you’ve won?”  
  
“I didn’t win shit.” He replied, accent thick and strong despite all efforts to the contrary. “Tell me, did it ever occur to your superior brain to stop? To think? That our sentimentality and weakness might not allow us to slaughter seventy-two helpless tricentenarians?!”  
  
“Marcus would have.” The other man said in a low voice.  
  
He slammed a fist against the barrier and roared, “Marcus is dead!”  
  
The poor crewman, in charge of keeping an eye on Khan, gibbered uselessly from his desk, citing regulations, protocol and _oh god, why me?_  
  
“You fucking idiot.” He snarled, nearly frothing at the mouth. “It didn’t have to be this way. The Enterprise was dead. You could have run. You could have just _asked_ Spock for your crew. I could have convinced him!”  
  
Coldly, Harrison said “Do you have any idea what Section 31 would have done had they learned that you have had prolonged contact with me?”  
  
“I don’t know.” He replied honestly. “Is it any different than what you would have done?”  
  
The alpha flinched as though struck. “I would have spared you. You are...”  
  
“What?” He took another swig, mixing drugs and alcohol was an excellent idea. It made him numb, allowed him to think. He never admitted to not having faults, he was just as complicit in the flaming wreck of a marriage as his then-wife had been. But he’d been burned badly enough to delude himself into thinking that he knew better. Newsflash, he wasn’t. “Different? All of us are different John, that’s what makes us _human_.”  
  
Harrison’s expression was thunderous.  
  
“Why do you insist on calling me that?”  
  
“Because I know you’re not Khan.”  
  
Harrison did not try to deny it. He was simply too young, too tall, too white. Khan Noonien Singh had once held a quarter of the world hostage, uniting the factions of augment warlords under one banner. By the time they relinquished their grip on the former South-East Asia, the man was well over forty. Even accounting for superior genes, Harrison was not.  
  
McCoy created a small opening in the barrier, the width of a man’s arm and slipped the flask through, silencing the crewman’s protests with a sullen scowl. The other man took the proffered gift, caressing its dented surface as he might a lover, his eyes dark and desirable under the fringe of dark hair.  
  
Harrison said quietly, “John Harrison was fiction.” 

To which McCoy replied,

“He was real enough for me.”


End file.
